


The Compass Home

by UselessNerd (fanfreak)



Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Casual, F/M, Marriage Proposal, Post-Canon, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:40:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25576723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fanfreak/pseuds/UselessNerd
Summary: Takes place after the Atlantis series finaleJack is retiring (finally, again, once more with feeling) and Sam has an important question to ask him. Can she work up the nerve before Atlantis flies back to the Pegasus Galaxy?
Relationships: Samantha "Sam" Carter/Jack O'Neill
Comments: 3
Kudos: 73





	The Compass Home

“Wow. You just never get used to that view.”

Walking with Jack O’Neill through the corridors of Atlantis was like walking an untrained dog through a treat store. Except Sam didn’t have a leash or the ability to give him commands.

Not that she blamed him. Whatever world Atlantis was on gave you one hell of a view from the corridors and balconies of the Ancient city. The fact that the Golden Gate bridge was currently the available view was spectacular.Though sometimes the cognitive dissonance threw Sam for a loop. A feeling she had struggled with far less at the SGC.

Though maybe it was the location so much as the day.

“Sir. The Edorians are waiting for us,” Sam prompted.

“Yeah, yeah,” General O’Neill said, waving one hand in the air while the other rested in his dress blue slack pocket, looking out at the encroaching sunrise. “Treaties between worlds. Ancient dig sites. Yada yada. Don’t they know I’m retiring?”

“I might have mentioned it.” Sam sucked her lips in to hide a smile, practically swallowing the happy feeling desperate to burst through. Surprises were more of Vala’s thing. Though this was moderately better than anything Vala might cook up. 

“I wonder how many of these stars we’ve been to,” he said, both hands now in his pockets as he craned his neck back to look at the barely perceptible dots.

“Very few, sir. Actually--”

“Carter!” He turned his head to look at her, already halfway through an eye roll. “Sam. What part of ‘retiring’ was hard to understand? Cut it with the ‘sir’ crap.”

Sam ducked her head, a giggle ticklin the inside of her chest. A tiny part of her wanted to throttle him. Boy did he love to tease her about how often she said ‘sir’ and ‘general’ when they were in public. Dancing that very, very, very fine line on what was appropriate between them. Absolutely nobody was fooled anymore, except for those that barely knew them and as Jack might say ‘they don’t count.’

“One more mission, Jack,” Sam said, brushing her bangs back from her eyes. “Then maybe we can go fishing!”

“Now that’s more like it!”

As Jack strode past her, ordering the Stargate dialed up like everybody else had kept things waiting, Sam lingered on the view. Feeling like she almost wasn’t going to come back. Which was ridiculous; of course she would.

But it would certainly be different when she did.

#

Vala had arranged for party hats, confettis, and -- somehow, impossibly -- a fog machine. Since Daniel dripped dread and annoyance out of every atom of his being, Sam knew he had nothing to do with it. In fact, she rather thought Teal’c might had helped judging by the small conspiratorial glance he and Vala shared. Or he just had a twitch in his eye he couldn’t help.

Cam had gone full fanboy about Edora. Which did nothing to help Sam with her nerves. But Laira was nothing but professional, except for a few teasing stories she shared about Jack’s three months trapped on the planet. Anything remotely romantic was left in a small private smile Laira gave Jack’s back when she thought nobody was looking.

There was food, drink, music, dancing, speeches. Before long the sun was setting -- Gate Travel jet lag was the weirdest darn thing -- and Sam was sure she’d never get the retiring General alone.

Maybe she ought to wait…

“Not enjoying the festivities, Colonel?” Teyla said, stepping up next to Sam.

“Oh, somebody has to make sure Sheppard doesn’t get Beckett too drunk and break something before he has to fly the city back to Pegasus,” Sam said, pointing to the gathering of Atlantis crew playing some sort of dancing game.

“Yes, that would be unfortunate.” Teyla had this ability to add gravitas to every statement she made. When she did that and sarcasm it made Sam nervous. Very few people made her nervous anymore; she’d seen way too much in her time with the Stargate Program.

But the fact that Teyla could make her nervous was a mark of how good of a friend she was as well. Sam treasured that. 

She turned away from Sheppard and Beckett to look at Teyla. “Okay. Am I that obvious?”

Teyla tilted her head from side to side. “Honestly, no. You and he do an admirable job. Sometimes I doubt it and I trust my source.”

“It was Teal’c, wasn’t it?”

“I could never reveal that information, not even under duress,” Teyla said, lifting her chin. And then to show she was very good at picking up Earth gestures, she winked.

Teal’c, it turned out, was an absolutely terrible gossip. Or Vala was a bad influence.

“But if I understand the command structure, you’re free to do as you wish,” Teyla continued. “So be the Samantha Carter we all know you are, get down there, and get exactly what it is you want.”

“He’s still technically--”

“Samantha!” Teyla raised both her eyebrows, daring Sam to continue to argue. 

She chuckled, eyes roving through the crowds to find him. It wasn’t hard. She seemed to have this magnet in her chest that always pulled in his direction. Even in a completely different galaxy, she’d always known the direction.

The direction home.

She strode through the party, wrapping her arm through Jack’s as she arrived. “Pardon us,” she said to Cam and Daniel, pulling Jack away from the town and into the night.

He didn’t say a word until the music and laughter was a distant hum and they were walking a path completely in darkness save for a few solar panel lamps place here and there for navigation.

“Okay, I’ll bite,” Jack said finally. “What are we doing?”

“I have something to ask you,” Sam said. How many years ago had they traveled this path to go watch “fire rain” only to be separated? Always separated. Three months here, a week there, a year and a whole galaxy away…

“You know I don’t do well with pop quizzes,” Jack teased, even as he stopped their walk, gently cupping Sam’s shoulder to turn her around to face him. “Can I at least get a hint? So I can prepare the right answer. Hopefully.”

Sam laughed, brushing back her hair. Her heart was racing. Right now she’d take a firefight with Wraiths over this. At least if she failed at that it was over quick.

Jack caught her hand and pulled it up to his lips. “Sam?”

“I want you to come with me,” she blurted. Supernovas blasted on her cheeks and she couldn’t hear the party any longer over the ‘whoosh whoosh’ of blood in her ears.

“That’s more of a statement...“ Jack said slowly.

“Oh god,” Sam said, placing her free hand over her face. This has been a disaster. Of course he would say no. Leave that little fishing cabin behind? Hockey games? Earth!? Jack O’Neill was the most Earthiest Earthling to ever Earth. He could never leave that behind.

And this silence was excruciating. Why couldn’t he just say ‘no’ already? Her eyes were starting to sting. Wow, she really was just a coward, wasn’t she?

“When is take off, exactly?” How long until we say goodbye? Sam’s brain translated.

“A week? Maybe two?” Sam said, gathering her courage to look up at him. “Zelenka still wants to do some tests on the ZPM the Edorians gave us. We need to get clearance, supplies, make sure everybody staying on board wants to be on board…”

“Sam.” Jack silenced her with a hand to her cheek, pad of his thumb brushing across her cheek. The tears that had built up leaked from the pressure and he brushed those away. “I take it all back. I don’t mind pop quizzes.”

“Sir?” Her eyebrows knit together quizzically.

“Ah!” he reprimanded. “No more sirs. If I’m going to be your base husband, then you really have to start calling me by my name.”

Sam choked on that strange mixture of old tears and fresh laughter. Of course he would phrase it like that. When did Jack O’Neill ever turn down a moment to goof?

“I was asking you to come with me not to marry me,” Sam said, at a loss for anything else to say.

“Oh? That’s not what I heard. But that could be the tinnitus. All those years of--”

“Jack?” she interrupted. He was moving closer. “Do you want to marry me?”

“Absolutely.”

The distance closed. He kissed her like he’d never kissed her before. No more closed doors. No more lightyears of space. No more following the compass in her heart to locate him in a crowd. They were right there together. And they never had to choose separation over each other ever again.

She was home.


End file.
